Before & After : Creative thinking in business

Welcome to the era of the in-house communications agency.

For those toiling in the trenches of corporate communications departments for years your day has finally come.

Oh, with few exceptions, you still don’t have all the glam and budgets that the outside ad agency gets, but there has been a significant shift. Your stock has risen sharply as the changes in media habits have made your arena more important to your corporation’s marketing success.

Some companies have recognized the importance of world-class communications teams for years; Target and Apple come to mind. I talk to more and more communications pros who have given up the outside to go inside. This is certainly where the growth is. Security, too?

The value of in-house communications has gained in direct proportion to the redistribution of communications vehicles, as articulated by the long tail theory. Below the line is the new above the line, baby!

Here at Before & After we’ve seen the increased investments corporations are making in their in-house pros with heightened activity in training and development. Heck, if companies are putting more faith in their in-house capabilities, they better make sure that team is operating on all cylinders. And nothing revitalizes the in-house machine like tuning up creative thinking.

Creative thinking is behind all aspects of in-house communications; strategy, media, concepting the “creative” work, as well as executing all of the above.

Want further proof? When The In-House Agency Forum (INAF) put together their first professional development conference with a focus on creativity they contact me to keynote the meeting. (Shameless plug, noted.)

Find out more about the INAF event, to be held June 8th outside of Boston, or check out Creative reCharge, Before & After’s custom tailored professional development program for in-house communications agencies.

With the business world game board being reset (see my post The world is not just flat, it’s upside down) there’s a great deal of opportunity for organizations that take the initiative to make serious gains in marketing communications. Go get ‘em!

I had a medical emergency recently. Which is why I haven’t been posting for a while. It could have been a long while, if not for my local hospital’s state-of-the-art equipment, expertise, techniques and chemicals.

But, as impressive and as leading edge as those things might be, there was another concept at work here that was even greater. A concept that made all of the other factors more effective. It is a concept that didn’t manifest as anything tangible; not equipment, not drug nor even as a technique. It’s a concept as old as time, yet for the medical profession, today it’s almost revolutionary in the treatment of heart attacks. The concept is speed.

Speed. Or as they say in the chest pain business “ER-door-to-balloon speed.” Angioplasty balloon, that is.

With all the improvements in the treatment of heart attack victims, at least people with completely blocked arteries, like I had, it turns out that getting the patient to a cold steel table for insertion of a catheter into an artery in a timely manner is now considered to be the greatest single factor in successful intervention and prevention of damage once a major cardiac event has occurred.

Speed. Whoathunk?

So what‘s the lesson here? Don’t overlook the little things, the obvious, the simple concepts that may just leverage all the other smart things you’re doing. Where are those magical points in your industry? What fresh perspective might you bring that can make a grand contribution to the whole?

Insight. Sometimes a simple shift of perspective can make all the difference in the world.

For anyone who might be wondering, that is my cardiogram above. Not the bad boy one. The one I had done yesterday to make sure everything is in working order. It is, thanks.